A Brief Sketch of the History of El Salvador

A Brief Sketch of the History of El Salvador Christians for Peace in El Salvador February 2017 n the following pages, you will find a narrative of the history of El Salvador as it relates primarily to the con- flicts of the late 20th century, when during a 12-year civil war, nearly 80,000 Salvadorans were killed or dis- I appeared. Our sketch, while not completely comprehensive, offers what we believe to be the best abridged summary of the events surrounding our Salvadoran sisters and brothers during and after the war, leading up to events in 2011. This pdf history is updated as needed to reflect the realities that are currently being experienced there. The most recent post updates to February 2012. Frente Farabundo Martí para la Socioeconomic Data: Key Facts about Lib- eración Nacional (FMLN). He Literacy rate [%] 81.1 was elected in March 2009 for a Gross National Income (GNI), per five-year term. El Salvador capita, current US$ 2,340.00 Civil War: The 12-year civil war Population: 7.2 million people liv- Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was waged between a series of ing in El Salvador. per capita, international $4,781.28 right-wing governments and a loose The smallest and most densely- Proportion of population below the coalition of popular movements. populated country in continental national poverty line [%] 48.3 Nearly 80,000 people died or disap- America. Access to Resources: peared in this war which ended with Immigration: 2.66 million (cur- Proportion of population with ac- the UN-mediated Peace Accords rently estimated at 35 percent of cess to potable water services [%] 82 in January 1992. Political violence total population) Salvadorans living Proportion of population with ac- has diminished, but other forms of outside of El Salvador. cess to sewage disposal services [%] violence, including street crime and Religion: About 57% of the popu- 63 social cleansing groups, have led to lation are practicing Catholic, the Physicians ratio [10,000 hab.] 12.6 higher homicide levels than during balance belonging to mainline the time of the war. Protestant churches, evangelical Source: Informe Desarollo Huma- Demographic Data: Protestant sects, or not claiming any no, PNUD 2005 and Pan American Proportion of urban population [%] religion. Health Organization, Regional Core 60.1 Economics: 41% of the popula- Health Data Initiative; Technical Annual population growth rate [%] tion lives in poverty and 15% of the Health Information System. Wash- 1.7 population lives in extreme poverty. ington DC, 2005. U.S. State Depart- Life expectancy at birth [Years] The literacy rate is 83%. ment, 2011. Most data current as of 71.4 President: Mauricio Funes of the 2010 El Salvador: The Country and Its People noes in the Valley of the Hammocks, near numbers of people moved south and west by Kevin Murray the spot where El Salvador’s indigenous to avoid the fighting. Those shifts left Inside El Salvador inhabitants located their pre-Colombian three-quarters of the population living in spiritual and commercial center. A taller, the southwestern section of the country, lmost exactly the size of Mas- more rugged mountain range traverses the including the capital. San Salvador, alone, sachusetts, El Salvador ranks northern third of the country. The Lempa, now contains over a quarter of the nation’s A as both the smallest and most Central America’s largest river, cuts El people. New population patterns increased densely populated country on the Ameri- Salvador in two and forms a formidable pressure on land and water resources, ag- can continent. The “little thumb of Latin natural barrier between the traditionally gravating already serious environmental America” gained international prominence isolated eastern area, and the more popu- problems. in the 1980s when its brutal civil war lous and economically developed central placed it at the center of the East-West and western sections. Hydroelectric dams War and Peace located on the Lempa provide most of the geopolitical conflict. Since the arrival of the Spanish in the country’s electricity. The two main high- Hundreds of international correspon- early sixteenth century, a small group of ways—the Coastal Highway and the Pan- dents filled luxury hotels during the early people have extended their control over American Highway—cross the Lempa at 1980s, at times, beyond capacity. A decade El Salvador’s primary natural resource, large bridges, both of which were blown later, the world scarcely noticed as the its land. This economically and politically up by the guerrillas during the war. United Nations observer mission shipped powerful class—often referred to as the The war caused major population shifts off the last of its Toyota Land Cruisers and “fourteen families”—transformed itself in El Salvador. As many as one million moved out, leaving the protection of the over the years but continued to hold the Salvadorans left the country, at least half peace process to the Salvadorans them- reins of wealth and power in El Salvador of them emigrating to the United States. selves. In 2011, gang violence, the effects well into the twentieth century. With the war and market conditions limit- of globalization and economic troubles The civil war, which began in earnest in ing income from El Salvador’s traditional define the landscape of El Salvador 1980, is best understood as one in a long exports like coffee and cotton, people El Salvador contains three distinct series of protests by those excluded from quickly became the country’s most im- geographical zones. A narrow plain runs that small circle of economic and political portant export. Dollars sent back home by along virtually all of the 120-miles of Pa- influence. The war’s primary protagonist, Salvadorans living abroad fueled the post- cific Coast. Immediately inland from the the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front war economic expansion and made U.S. coastal plain, a line of volcanoes traverse (FMLN), traces its heritage back through immigration policy a paramount concern the country in a remarkable straight line its namesake, Farabundo Martí, who fell for any government in San Salvador. from east to west. The capital city, San before a firing squad in 1932, to the indig- Within the national borders, huge Salvador, sits nestled among the volca- enous leader, Atlacatl, who left his arrow becomes the dominant crop and the coffee continue with the revolt. 30,000 peasants oligarchy consolidates into the famous “14 are subsequently killed under General El Salvador Timeline families.” Maximiliano Hernandez Martínez in La 1524 Spanish adventurer Pedro de Al- 1922 The National Guard formed, headed Matanza (The Massacre). Martí and the varado conquers El Salvador. by General Maximilano Martínez. leadership are publicly executed. Indig- 1540 Indigenous resistance defeated and 1931 March - The Great depression enous culture is systematically targeted El Salvador becomes a Spanish colony. wipes out the global coffee market. and thereafter practiced underground in Indigenous people removed from their Popular and indigenous rights movement order to hide identity. Martínez is hailed as coastal lands for use by Spanish indigo gains momentum, whose leaders include a hero by oligarchy, for saving the nation producers and forcibly resettled in the Augustín Farabundo from the “clutches of communism,” and mountainous areas. Martí. retains presidency until 1944. Memory of 1821 Central America gains indepen- December - Coup La Matanza stays like a traumatic wound in dence from Spain and the United Prov- led by Minister of War popular consciousness. inces of Central America are formed. General Martínez 1944 April - Military uprising against Mar- 1840 El Salvador becomes fully inde- to oust democrati- tínez, followed by a general strike in which pendent after the dissolution of the United cally-elected, Labor several civilians, including a university Provinces of Central America. Party founder, Arturo student, are killed. 1846 President Eugenio Aguilar introduc- Araujo. Martínez as- May - US Ambassador withdraws support es coffee growing. Production is intensified sumes power. for Martínez and he subsequently resigns. under president Gerardo Barrios. Martinez 1932 Martí orga- October - Another coup brings Osmin 1881 Conservative president Zaldívar nizes a revolt but is captured and the plans Aguirre to power, commencing the so- decrees laws which force indigenous out for the uprising are discovered. Unaware called “Reign of Terror” in which the Na- of communal mountainous lands. Coffee of the capture, the indigenous peasants tional Workers Union is destroyed, its lead- did not do it on their own. The US, after Contadora mediating group joined at times El Salvador: The Country and Its People failing to preserve the National Guard con- by Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Brazil to in the leg of the Spanish invader Pedro trol in Nicaragua as the Sandinistas took form “The Eight Mediators.” Alvarado four and a half centuries earlier. over, began an ever-escalating military aid The Reagan Administration, escalating The 1932 massacre of 30,000 campesinos and involvement in El Salvador. to $6 billion the aid to El Salvador, re- and Marti’s execution, a traumatic wound France and Mexico recognized the jected the Contadora proposals as well as in the psyche of El Salvador, was car- insurgents as a legitimate force’ that there- the later Esquipulas I and II dialogues for ried out by the military who since have fore must be dealt within negotiations, Peace in Central America (Nicaragua and maintained control of the country. It was a suggestion anathema to Salvadoran El Salvador participating with Honduras, always the military leaders who won the oligarchy and military. Panama, Costa Guatemala and Costa Rica in these last “elections” in El Salvador. (One of the Rica, Venezuela and Colombia formed a Continued on next page death squads of the 1980s took the name of Maximiliano Hernández EL SALVADOR Martinez who ordered the slaughter of 1932).

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